The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for skinning fish, particularly catfish, a common name applied to members of the fish families classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Cypriniformes, suborder Nematognathi.
Catfish have scaleless skin, and as such, they are unique in the approach to obtaining the catfish meat, or product. In the traditional mode of skinning catfish, the live fish are attempted to be secured in position at or near the head so that the fish's skin may be removed. Cuts are made along the fish's neck, and the person performing the skinning must pull the skin off of the fish as it wriggles, attempting to escape. The only employed methods of securing the fish to prevent such escape are methods such as clamping the fish to a board, or forcing the fish's head on a nail secured to another stationary object. In the either of these methods, the fish must be handled twice as much to flip it from one side to the other to make cuts, and the latter does not permit re-placement of the fish, because the flesh will be unusable as a result of piercing the fish's head with an object such as a nail. Also known is a method of using a rounded hook to try and secure the head of a catfish. However, again in this instance, the fish is able to move a great deal about the length of the hook, making securing the fish difficult, as well as the difficulty in making accurate cuts on the wriggling fish.
This skinning proves to be challenging not only from the standpoint of the difficulties of working with a lubricious item such as a freshly caught fish, but catfish in particular are capable of stinging by using the barbels located along the periphery of their mouths, cutting by using sharp defensive spines in the shoulder and dorsal fins, as well as biting, since the fish possess both a large mouth and powerful jaws capable of inflicting harm on someone seeking to skin these fish. Being able to secure the fish thus becomes very important in this endeavor to prevent injury, as well as obtaining the maximum amount of meat from each fish, obtained by making an optimal skinning.
Obvious downsides to the current method of skinning exist, as are witnessed above. The consequence of these issues is increased injuries associated with the skinning, reduced productivity, and a poorly executed skin removal.
All of these aspects of the current mode of catfish skinning lead to an increased need for a revised method and apparatus for catfish skinning with minimized cost and complexity, all of which the present invention addresses.
The present invention of a skinning apparatus and method is thus a much-improved mode of handling this process, since it enables a person seeking to skin a catfish the ability to skin the fish while it remains fixed and does not require the positioning of the fish at all. The entire process can be accomplished without moving the fish from its initial placement on the invention.